Worn-out nurses hit the road for better pay, stressing hospital budgets, morale

> If enough health care workers are willing to walk away from their jobs rather than take a vaccine, maybe you should take their observations seriously?

If you value their opinions in that way, you should get the vaccine.

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-sur...

"The American Medical Association (AMA) today released a new survey (PDF) among practicing physicians that shows more than 96 percent of surveyed U.S. physicians have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19, with no significant difference in vaccination rates across regions. Of the physicians who are not yet vaccinated, an additional 45 percent do plan to get vaccinated."

There are a few things I've learned from the nurses I know...

- Nurses, the primary caregivers in Hospitals, have been treated pretty poorly for a long time. Some of it is pay, some of it is expectations, some of it is just the way the people around them treat them (e.g., the way surgeons often talk to them).

- Some management has gotten down right mean. I know one hospital that has dictated that refusing to work a mandated shift (that's where they keep you longer than your shift to keep working) will cause you to be fired. They've gone through on that already.

- ICU nurses have seen the worst. In places that have had peak COVID it's not unusual for 9/10 people with COVID in the ICU to die. That takes a tole on people.

- Some hospitals are giving huge bonuses to new hires. And better pay. There's nothing like being a senior nurse in an ICU who has more responsibility and higher expectations while having the new person next to them having just gotten a bonus and making more money. You might as well quit and go work at a different nearby hospital to get a bonus and raise.

I wonder what would happen if hospitals starting doing peakon surveys of their people and started working to improve on things.

Take it with a grain of salt but I have seen a number of conversations about how hospital groups are applying raises. They take the bottom pay and they apply some dollar amount per year worked/experience. Seems to be wiping out more experienced employees raises.

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6267377

Maybe going from being labelled as a hero to "get vaccinated or you're a threat to public health" is not something that sits very well with people.

> (e.g., the way surgeons often talk to them)

To be fair, surgeons talk to everyone that way. I haven’t met a surgeon who didn’t talk down to other people. My theory is that you have to have a huge fucking ego to cut someone open and believe you’re going to make them better.